


Better Winter Wrap It Up

by Chash



Series: Pony Regrets [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Geeks, my little pony - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Octavia drags Bellamy to a My Little Pony tournament. Bellamy is deeply upset about the whole thing, but then the girl running the tournament is really cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Winter Wrap It Up

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone likes AUs with a lot of unnecessary details about super obscure topics, because oh boy does this have a lot of unnecessary detail about an obscure topic. Anyway, my friend Steve (whom I met through the My Little Pony card game) made me write this, and as usual I was powerless to resist him. He also provided the title. We absolutely should not be allowed to be friends.

Bellamy is willing to do a lot of things for his baby sister, but he's drawing the line at _My Little Pony_.

"It's fun, Bell!"

"It's pastel cartoon horses."

"So?"

"You know you're an adult, right? You graduated from college. You pay taxes."

"Haven't you been on the internet? Tons of adults like this show." She pauses, and admits, "Okay, some of them are creepy dudes who think the ponies are their wives or something, but a lot of them just think it's a cute show. Which it is!"

"And that's not creepy at all." 

"Look, I'm not asking you to watch the show or go to a convention with me or whatever, I just don't want to go to this alone, okay? I need backup."

"Because you're afraid of the creepy guys. You're kind of proving my point here, O."

"It's a new game store," Octavia says, crossing her arms and looking uncomfortable. "I don't know what it's going to be like. I don't mind beating up a bunch of mouth-breathers, but I'd rather have backup if it comes to that." She worries her lip, and she might be an adult who pays taxes, but she's also his baby sister, she's nervous, and she's asking him for a favor he can easily do for her, so there's really no way he's going to say no, even if it means spending his Saturday afternoon at a _My Little Pony_ tournament.

Why are there even _My Little Pony_ tournaments, seriously? What is the world coming to?

"Okay," says Octavia, as they're walking over, "you want a quick rundown of the rules?"

"No."

"Too bad. So each player has a mane character--and they spell mane _m-a-n-e_ in the rule book, which I know you'll hate."

"I do."

"The mane character starts the game in play and gives you a certain amount of power in a color, usually one."

"I cannot even begin to tell you how little I care about this," Bellamy says.

"Your basic mechanic for scoring points is solving problems with your friends!"

"Of course it is."

She keeps telling him about the game, which seems to involve a lot of friendship and some amount of being a dick to your opponent, which Bellamy does not think is really very friendly. But he guesses a game that revolves around nothing but friendship would not be particularly competitive. "I'm on Rainbow Dash mane with villain-farming," she explains as they get to the store. "Which is, like, not the best villain-farming build at all, I should do Maud mane, but I really like Rainbow Dash? So whatever."

"Yeah that sounds like a real problem," he says. "I feel for you, O."

"You're a dick," she says.

"You're the one who asked me to come. And you knew I was going to be a dick. I told you I was going to be a dick. I'm always a dick."

"Thanks for coming." She gives him a small, genuine smile, and he smiles back. But then she says, "Hi, we're here for the _My Little Pony_ tournament?" to the guy at the counter, which destroys a lot of his goodwill.

"I'm not staying--" he hisses at her, but she elbows him.

"Entry is five dollars, Clarke runs it." Bellamy glances around, looking at the guys to see if any of them are ogling O inappropriately or anything. One is checking her out a little, but it's subtle, and he's sitting with a cute blonde girl, so either he knows how to interact with the opposite sex or he's already creeping on someone. "She's the one in the Nausicaa shirt," the guy at the counter continues, and Bellamy takes another look at the blonde. Really cute, and wearing a badass Miyazaki t-shirt. Bonus.

"She's organizing it?" he asks.

"Yeah, she runs all the weekly tournaments. You just pay me, she'll take care of the rest."

Octavia's going to make him stay anyway, and he doesn't want to look like an idiot in front of the cute girl. "You're paying for my entry, and don't even pretend you didn't bring a spare deck for me," he tells his sister. "I need a crash course."

She looks over her shoulder, spots the blonde, and rolls her eyes. "You're so predictable, Bell." But she gives the guy ten dollars and hands him a deck box. "This is my spare, just-for-fun deck, you don't get to complain it sucks. I would have made you a real deck if I knew you were actually going to play."

His main--he is not calling it a mane character, goddamnit, Octavia--character is a fancy white pony named Rarity who has a purple mane and seems to sparkle a lot. He isn't one of those guys who's convinced his masculinity is linked to what his hobbies are or anything dumb like that, but it's still a lot to take in.

"So this deck is, um--" She looks like she's trying very hard not to laugh, and he will definitely murder her. "Hats?"

" _Hats_?"

"Yeah! Okay, remember I told you your mane boosted under certain conditions?"

"Pretend I already forgot everything you told me. Except that it's called a mane character, because fuck that."

"You're useless. Okay, from the top."

They don't have a lot of time before the tournament starts, but Octavia breaks down the basic mechanics of the game and how his deck works--"You just want to play as many hats as possible, okay?" "Goddamnit, O."--before the blonde stands up and says, "Okay, anyone in the pony tournament, I'm doing first-round pairings, so get over here."

Octavia gets paired against some scrawny kid in goggles; Bellamy gets paired against Clarke. Which is cool, in the limited sense that he stuck around to check her out, so it's good he's going to get to talk to her, but now he's playing fucking _My Little Pony_ with a hot girl, and he's not even good at it. These are not really ideal _hey baby, what's your sign_ conditions.

"Hat Rarity?" Clarke says when he starts laying down his cards. This is definitely going to get worse before it gets better.

"It's, uh. My sister's spare deck. She just finished college and moved back here. I guess she played a lot at school but she didn't want to come to a new place alone, so--"

Clarke is looking fairly unimpressed. "You don't need to make excuses for being here. It's a really awesome game."

"Judging from you and Octavia, I need to make excuses for playing Hat Rarity."

Clarke cracks a smile at that, and she's _really_ fucking cute. "I just figured she was your favorite pony."

"Oh, uh, no. I don't really--I don't have a favorite pony." She looks dubious, and he glances at the cards in his hand, desperate to find one. He can't believe he's trying to make up a favorite _My Little Pony_ character to impress a girl. This is where he is in his life. "Uh, Bulk Biceps," he says, because the dude is giant and rocking a weird sundress. Bellamy is down. "Definitely Bulk Biceps."

"I'm a Princess Twilight Sparkle girl, myself," says Clarke.

"That cannot be a real thing," he grumbles. She just smiles brightly and then proceeds to _kick his fucking ass_. There's no other way to put it. She crushes him. He doesn't even get to play that many hats, which, okay, it wasn't like he was really that excited to have to say the sentence "I will play a Marvelous Chapeau on Cherry Jubilee," but at least it would have felt like he was accomplishing something.

She looks somewhat guilty for trouncing him, but also a little smug, and he'd like to hate her, but it's a great look on her.

"We're getting ready for store champs in a couple months, so I'm playing my competitive deck," she says, by way of apology. "We can go again with something more casual if you want, that didn't take long."

"Way to rub it in," he grumbles, but he's already shuffling. The game isn't exactly fun, but it's weirdly compelling, and he doesn't really like losing. Which he probably should have thought about before getting involved in a tournament playing a hat-based deck, but it's _My Little Pony_. For all he knew, hats were really good. 

Clarke hands him his ass with her casual deck too, but she talks him through it more, telling him when he has a better move or why she does something that she does, and it's educational and even pretty fun. He even wants to play again, with a real deck and some idea of what he's doing, so he can put up a real fight and maybe even beat her. Beating her might be his primary motivation to keep playing.

"So, uh, how do you get into something like this?" he asks, while they're waiting for the last match to wrap up.

"My best friend, Lincoln," she says, nodding toward the guy who was checking Octavia out. "He's kind of in the fandom. Not, like, hardcore, Fluttershy is my waifu or anything, but he's a pretty well-known fan artist. He wanted to go to the pre-release but he doesn't like doing this stuff alone. My ex-boyfriend got me into Magic in college and I was pretty good, so I figured I'd tag along and see if I could make some bronies cry. But I really like the game too. They need to work on some balance issues and stomp harder on dumb combo decks, but it's got a lot of cool mechanics." She flashes him again. "And I do get to make bronies cry, as a bonus."

He laughs, even if, honestly, he only got about half of that.

"No offense if you identify as a brony," she adds.

"Honestly, I don't even know what that means," he says. "Is it like a gang thing?"

Clarke squints at him, like she's trying to determine if he's telling the truth. It makes him weirdly self-conscious, even though he really doesn't know what she's talking about. There's no lie for her to see through.

"Dudes who like the show," she says, apparently satisfied. "Bro plus pony." She rolls her eyes. "Because, you know, god forbid you enjoy something without reminding the world you have a penis."

"Oh." He shrugs. "Seriously, my sister made me come. And gave me her shitty hat deck."

"Yeah, I guess you really don't seem like a Rarity guy," she decides. "Tell her to make you an Orange deck."

He wants to tell her he's never coming back, but--she's hot and he still wants to beat her at this stupid game. Bellamy's nothing if not shallow and over-competitive.

He loses his second round game too, to Jasper, the guy in the goggles Octavia just beat, but he pulls out a last-round victory over some kid named Miles, whose deck lacks both focus and good cards. Even Bellamy can tell, and he's still trying to get over how stupid all the pony names are.

Clarke wins, but Octavia comes in second, and doesn't seem upset about it. "I didn't know anyone was even still playing Dream Quest variants after Absolute Discord," she's telling Clarke. It's like they're actually speaking another language.

"I'm not sure it's really the most competitive build, but I don't want to play that combo shit, and I wanted to see if it was still viable." She turns to Bellamy. "I was just telling your sister, we usually go across the street and grab dinner after the tournament? You guys are welcome if you want to join us."

"You're officially released from chaperone duties," Octavia says, perfect timing as always. "So you can split if you want to."

"Nah," he says, trying to play it cool. She couldn't just give him an excuse to stay. Of course not. She's never made it easy on him, so why would she start now? "I need to eat anyway, right? I'll stick around."

Octavia beams, but at least she seems more happy than smug. Although, knowing her, smug is probably coming. 

They troop across the street with Clarke, Lincoln, Jasper, and one of the guys he didn't meet, Wick, and grab what is apparently their usual table in a small bar. It's early enough to not be crowded yet, and it's got a good vibe, dark and kind of dive-y. Bellamy could see himself coming here more often.

Their waitress is an unreal hot Latina, who greets them with, "Oh god, the herd is growing."

"My roommate, Raven," says Clarke. "Octavia is new in town, be nice. We're being welcoming."

"I'm always nice," says Raven. "Who's getting wasted to forget they're obsessed with cartoon horses?"

"I'm going to marry her," Wick declares, after she's taken their orders and left to help other tables.

Clarke pats him on the arm. "Keep telling yourself that." She turns to Bellamy, who managed to snag the seat next to her without being too obvious about it. "So, is this your first CCG?"

"Uh, probably. You should just assume everything you say sounds like a weird foreign language to me."

She regards him, and then says, "Okay, but you're definitely a nerd about _something_."

"History, classics, mythology, _The X-Files_ ," Octavia rattles off from the other side of the table. He didn't even know she was paying attention to them. Her mutant superpower is embarrassing him.

Clarke raises her eyebrows, expectant, and Bellamy grumbles, "I'm not really a nerd about _The X-Files_ , I just like it."

Clarke laughs, and it's hard to feel particularly annoyed, because she has a nice laugh. Even when she is clearly mocking him. "I like it too," she says.

"I also like Miyazaki," he offers, nodding to her shirt, and her eyes light up. 

"Yeah? What's your favorite?" 

The topic carries them through most of dinner, and by the end Bellamy feels a little like he went on a very bizarre but enjoyable blind date, and when Clarke asks him, specifically, if she'll see him next week, he just says, "Yeah, probably," and resigns himself to it.

"Please tell me you aren't picking up this game just because you want to flirt with a girl," Octavia says, dry.

"Nah." He ruffles her hair. "I just really want to beat her. She says you should make me an Orange deck."

"Her deck is really good against Orange decks."

"Even better. Lull her into a false sense of security."

Octavia rolls her eyes. "You're a weirdo, Bell."

"Says the girl who dragged me to a _My Little Pony_ tournament."

*

They spend a lot of time practicing over the next week. Miller is horrified, but Monty is intrigued, which naturally only makes Miller more horrified. 

"You're getting pony germs on my boyfriend," he complains, and Octavia just sticks her tongue out and goes back to giving Monty a tutorial. "Are you reading an article about this?" he adds, leaning over Bellamy's shoulder.

"It's a tournament report," he says, somewhat sulky. According to Octavia, Clarke is good enough at the stupid pony game that she's actually heard of her, which means he's got to really up his game. He's been on Reddit a lot, reading strategy articles. It's upsetting. He hates Reddit.

Miller might have a point. This is a level of dedication he was not planning on.

Instead of admitting it, he asks Octavia, "What does Earth Pony tribal mean?"

"Seriously, review that question and tell me you are in control of your life," says Miller. Bellamy ignores him.

"It means you're playing nothing but Earth Ponies. I think it's a Magic thing? I don't know."

Monty makes Miller start learning too; he and Bellamy make up a drinking game so they'll feel better about their lives. It doesn't help that much. Still, all four of them go to the tournament next week, with increasingly shitty decks as Octavia runs out of good cards. Monty has the hat deck, Miller has something Octavia calls "budget ballroom blitz," like this is something that makes sense to anyone but her, and Bellamy's made himself a deck out of male ponies that he's calling "Dude Tribal," because naming decks is apparently a thing. Even he knows it's terrible, but he still feels strangely proud of himself for putting it together. Plus, it will definitely lull Clarke into a false sense of security. Or maybe a completely valid sense of security. It's garbage.

She's already there when they arrive, playing with Lincoln. He sits down next to her and she hands him a long box. He frowns at it. "Thanks?"

"It's some spare commons and uncommons," she says. "Maybe a couple rares I missed, I don't know. To get your collection started."

"Oh," he says, surprised. "Uh. Thanks." He clears his throat, finding himself oddly touched by the gesture. Not that he wants a collection of _My Little Pony_ cards, but--she went to the trouble of putting them together to give to him. It's kind of exciting. "This is my roommate, Miller, and his boyfriend, Monty. Uh, I guess they're both my roommates now," he amends. Monty and Miller had been doing the long-distance thing while Monty was in grad school, and Bellamy still isn't quite used to the whole "living in a house with his sister and his best friend's boyfriend," thing, instead of it just being him and Miller in their shitty apartment. "Octavia roped them in too."

"I am awesome," says Octavia, bright. She sits down next to Lincoln, which he should remember for the next time she brings up how he has taken up a game about cartoon horses because of a girl. Counter-mocking is always appropriate.

"Well, the more the merrier," says Clarke. "Got a new deck?" she asks Bellamy.

"Oh yeah. Orange, like you said."

She looks pleased. "Yeah? Let me see."

"No way, I can't give away my secrets. You'll have an advantage."

She raises her eyebrows. "Seriously?"

There is no way she is not going to rip the deck apart, but he perversely wants to see her face when she realizes how awful it is. "Fine. But watch out, it's pretty good."

She looks dubious as soon as she sees he's playing the weird dragon thing as his main, and then she just looks more and more horrified as she goes through the deck. She looks up finally, staring at him in open disgust. "Are you seriously playing _Ship Shape_? You know this is, like, the go-to ultra-rare people make fun of, right? It's the actual worst."

"I'm playing Dude Tribal," says Bellamy, biting back his smile. "He's a dude."

"There are other dudes! Also, Dude Tribal, really?"

"It was either that or an Octavia theme deck, and she told me she'd kill me."

"All the Octavias _suck_ ," says Octavia. She is clearly bitter about it.

"I think the correct pluralization is Octaviae," he tells her. "It's a Latin word."

Clarke is still looking at him, calculating. "You know this deck is garbage, don't you."

He shrugs. "We don't really have enough good cards to go around."

She hands it back. "I could tell you like fifty billion things to do to make that deck better, including burning all your Ship Shapes, but I'm honestly just surprised you didn't come here with the most competitive build you could find. You don't really seem like the shitty joke deck type."

He shrugs. "Maybe I'm full of surprises."

"Maybe," she says, but she still looks like she's waiting for a punchline. Bellamy keeps on smiling, serene.

He doesn't get to play her in the tournament--he gets bumped to the losers' bracket too early--but she does make him do a pickup game between rounds. She stomps him, and he just smiles wider, which clearly makes her more confused and upset.

On his way out, he buys a bunch of cards. Like, a really inadvisable number of cards. Way more cards than he can afford. This is happening.

Miller and Monty come to dinner with them, and Clarke's roommate is even hotter and even more disdainful than last week. She has some kind of gift. "You guys are contagious," she remarks.

Jasper and Monty have apparently actually known each other for a while--Bellamy doesn't catch the details, but he got something about childhood friends, tragically moved apart, same World of Warcraft guild, and then--well, that's about as much as he could follow of the conversation. They're speaking a new, video-game-based foreign language. But he's pretty sure this is his new social group, which feels a little sad on the one hand, but given his previous social group was just his best friend, and, more recently, his sister and his best friend's boyfriend, people he met through the _My Little Pony_ game is probably still an improvement. He's growing as a person, maybe.

"So, what do you do aside from cartoon horses?" he asks Clarke. He's sitting next to her again. He's not sure if he's actually good at the hanging out with Clarke game, or everyone else is letting him win.

"Med school."

"And you still have time for this?"

She shrugs. "I make time. It's tough fitting in a social life, but this is something I can do with Lincoln, and then I see Raven after, and enable Wick's very sad crush on her, as a bonus. It's a very efficient use of my friendship budget."

He lets out a very undignified laugh. "You have a friendship budget? No wonder Twilight Sparkle is your favorite."

"Ha!" she says, poking him in the chest. "I knew it. You know about ponies."

"Monty made us watch the first season while he was learning," he mutters darkly.

"What do you do when you're pretending you don't like cartoon horses?"

"I'm a teacher. High school history."

"Oh," she says, sounding kind of impressed. "That's actually pretty cool."

He snorts. "Not the reaction I usually get. Octavia tends to remind me I'm a giant dork."

"I'm a med student who runs a weekly _My Little Pony_ tournament," Clarke says. "I try not to get too judgey about who's a giant dork. And teaching, that's--" She grins. "There is no way _I_ could teach high school students without killing someone, so I'm impressed."

"Oh, yeah, they're total shits," Bellamy says, grinning. "But I raised Octavia, and she's was the worst teenager of all time--"

"Hey!" she interjects. Her ability to overhear his conversations while still flirting with Lincoln is uncanny.

"See?" 

Clarke is laughing. "Yeah, I can see where this is going." She cocks her head at him. "You raised her?"

"Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck. "Our mom died when I was seventeen, I got emancipated because they were gonna send her to her dad and me to mine, and neither of us wanted that."

She doesn't do the _oh, that must have been so hard, you're so brave_ thing he gets a lot; instead she says, "Wow, that's really fast to get emancipated, how did you make that work?" and makes him actually break the legal process they went through, which is bizarrely adorable.

He might be in trouble.

He has Clarke, Wick, Lincoln, and Jasper's numbers at the end of the night, and honestly, it makes him feel like friendship really might be magic.

Or he's had too much to drink. That's got to be it.

*

On Wednesday, she texts and says, _we're doing a draft tomorrow night, you want in?_

_Reminder: everything you say is a foreign language to me._

_just come by the store after school tomorrow, blake. i've got your back_

Sadly, there is no universe where he can say no to that, so he finds himself actually leaving school right when it ends for once instead of doing grading and being available for questions. He finds Clarke already at the store with her feet up on a table, reading a comic book.

"Does your deck suck less yet?"

"I'm making a new one. Sibling theme. All Applejack and Big Mac, all the time. And some Octaviae. Just the Canterlot one, with no requirement."

"You know what good decks look like, right? We've been trying to teach you."

"Maybe I'm discovering new good decks."

"Look, there is not a good deck that involves Octavia," Clarke says. "No offense to your sister."

"Just you wait," Bellamy teases. "Octavia tribal. It's going to be a thing."

"Anyone ever tell you you're a little creepy about your sister? Just a little."

Normally he regards that kind of teasing as fighting words, but there's no edge to it with Clarke, just friendliness, and he finds himself smiling back instead. "Literally all the time. So, tell me what I'm here for again?"

"Draft. We each get five booster packs, open them one at a time, pick one card, and then pass the rest of the pack around the table until all the cards are gone. You get new cards, and you can make a whole new kind of shitty deck. You'll have fun."

And he does. Clarke explains what he's supposed to doing the whole time, mostly because he pretends he forgot, and, as with everything involved in the pony game, it's bizarre and confusing, but at least everyone is making terrible decks because their card pools are limited, and he comes in second mostly through blind luck. He still loses to Clarke in the last round, but it's a little close.

"You wouldn't be that bad at this game if you put some effort into it," she remarks.

"Yeah, but then I'd be good at the _My Little Pony_ card game," he shoots back, and she rolls her eyes.

"Your denial about how great the pony game is is getting old. I'm just saying. Just embrace it. You can tell me who your favorite pony is. This is a safe space."

Bellamy does not mention that he is halfway through the second season of the show, watching it on Monty's Netflix account, while no one is home, so no one will ever know. It's not like he likes it, exactly, but it's sort of fun. And he does like having background, so he knows what's happening in the card art.

His life is on a pretty rapid downward spiral.

"I already told you," he says. "Bulk Biceps."

Clarke laughs, and that right there is why his life is spiraling downward, and he doesn't even care. She's really fucking awesome. "Going all in on that one, huh?"

"Yup," Bellamy agrees. "All in."

*

The first time he beats her at a game, it's completely unintentional. He's playing this weird White deck he made without any real idea what he was doing, because he got the ultra-rare Queen Chrysalis main in the draft and he's been trying to figure out what to do with it. He just sort of throws a bunch of his and Octavia's good White cards into a deck and tries to steal all of his opponent's Friends. It works a lot better than he was expecting.

Clarke just sort of stares at the board in mute horror. Bellamy's doing the same thing, honestly. He'd sort of been planning to wait a while to beat her. Lull her into a false sense of security. He wasn't going to beat her, because--

Well, he was coming back to beat her someday. And now he has. So he can stop coming. He did it.

"What's even _in_ that deck?" she asks, and he hands it over without a word. "You don't even have a real secondary color," she says, irritable. "How did you even--Flim and Flam shouldn't have even _helped_ you, what were you going to do if you got behind?"

"Matilda and then Dressed Up on Flim and Flam," he says, absent. "I had a plan."

"Fuck that card, seriously," she says, fierce, and she's _pissed_. He hadn't quite realized it, but she is fucking angry that he beat her. It's kind of awesome.

"Which one?" he asks, mild.

"Flim and Flam," she says, scowling. "Such a fucking asshole card."

He bites back a grin. He still feels like the whole situation is unreal and a little upsetting, but--she's so wound up. He can't help winding her up more. "Language. This is a family store."

She glares at him. It's not even the finals; he beat Miles in round one, which isn't even an accomplishment, because Miles' deckbuilding entire strategy seems to consist of, "I like this pony, she's pretty." Clarke was totally unprepared, and he smoked her.

"We're going again," she says.

"Round's almost over." He tries not to sound too smug about it, and fails. Clarke glowers harder. "Lincoln's at like thirteen, he's going to win next turn."

"That is not 100% certain," says Wick, but he's frowning. "Okay, fine, yeah, I'm dead in the water. Shut up, Blake."

"He beat Clarke," Octavia says, proud. She lost to Lincoln in the first round, which is also disconcerting. He's not used to having a better record than she does. "She's salty about it."

"I am _not_ ," Clarke grumbles. Bellamy ruffles her hair, and she scowls harder.

He loses to Lincoln in the finals, and doesn't even care. Clarke is adorably grumpy at dinner again, periodically interjecting with comments like, "Seriously, what is Bulk Biceps even still doing in your deck, you are playing a White mane, there are better cards," and Bellamy grins pretty much the entire meal.

And then, on their way home, Octavia says, "So, are you done now that you beat Clarke?"

"Huh?" he asks.

"Well, you said you weren't playing to flirt with her, just to beat her. And you did. So are you quitting?"

Bellamy figures he has three clear options here: admit he wants to keep flirting with Clarke, admit he actually _likes_ the stupid fucking pony game, or retain his dignity and quit the entire thing forever.

He finally settles on, "If I quit now, she's going to think it was a fluke."

Octavia rolls her eyes. "Sure, Bell. Whatever you say."

*

The next morning, he has an email from sea_gryphon@gmail.com with the subject line, _villain friends deck, idk_. When he opens it up, there's a link to a Ponyhead deck and the message, _So, I've been fooling around with the villain friends, including fucking Flim and Flam, but I feel like it's not quite there yet. Got any ideas?_

It's not signed, but it doesn't really need to be.

 **Bellamy Blake** to Sea  
Re: villain friends deck, idk

1\. I have to do a bunch of grading today so I probably won't get to it until tonight or tomorrow morning, but it looks cool. Better feedback later.  
2\. Where did you get my email address? Stalker.  
3\. Is Sea Gryphon your pony OC?

 

 **Sea Gryphon** to Bellamy  
Re: villain friends deck, idk

1\. No rush.  
2\. It's linked from your Facebook page, dumbass. And you're the one who friended me, so let's not throw around accusations about who's stalking whom.  
3\. I was twelve when I set up this email, okay? And I didn't want to give Google+ my real name. I do pornographic fanart commissions with this account, I do not want it linked to my professional career.

 

 **Bellamy Blake** to Sea  
Re: villain friends deck, idk

1\. It's really hot that you use whom correctly in casual correspondence.  
2\. I'm not sure which I'm more curious about: you doing pornographic fanart commissions, or you emailing me from your pornographic fanart commission email. I have to grade shit, I cannot be trying to find your erotica.  
3\. Why are some of the Twilight Sparkle cards princesses? That seems weirdly inconsistent.

 

 **Sea Gryphon** to Bellamy  
Re: villain friends deck, idk

1\. Thanks, that's how I impress all the guys. Girls are more into semi-colons.  
2\. My tumblr is seagryphon.tumblr.com, you can just hit the "my art" link on the sidebar. It's not all porn, sorry.  
3\. She becomes the alicorn princess of friendship at the end of the third season, so it's mostly timeline based. They did Princess of Friendship as the secret ultra-rare in Crystal Games and then Star Swirl Enthusiast in AD. That's also why you see her with wings on some cards but not other cards, etc.

 

 **Bellamy Blake** to Sea  
Re: villain friends deck, idk

1\. I'm also into semi-colons.  
2\. Goddamnit, seriously, I have to grade this shit, don't link me to your tumblr _now_.  
3\. Jeez, spoilers much?

 

His phone starts ringing ten minutes later, and he debates not picking it up, but he can definitely talk to Clarke and grade at the same time. That's easy. He can multi-task.

"Hey," he says, trying not to smile.

"If you don't want spoilers, don't _ask spoiler-based questions_ ," Clarke says, sounding gleeful.

It's a losing battle. He grins and flops back on the couch, ignoring the pile of papers in his lap. "How was I supposed to know it was spoiler-based? I don't know what spoilers are."

"Maybe if you admitted you were watching the show, I would have known to tell you to wait. But you're all _no, I only play with cartoon horses ironically, I'm better than you plebes_."

"I also watch a lot of the History Channel."

"Yeah, the History Channel is like 50% reality shows and 50% aliens built the pyramids, so you're not helping your case here. Also, I thought you were grading, not emailing me all day."

"I thought you were a busy med school student."

"I'm studying. Where are you in MLP?"

"Uh, like--just finished the third season opening? Not sure I can keep going, honestly." Miller and Monty are hanging out at Jasper's and Octavia is doing something with Lincoln, so he was using ponies for background noise while no one was around. His life continues to be fucking horrific.

"Oh, god, the fucking Crystal Empire," Clarke says, with feeling. "It's the fucking worst. Where do you live again?"

"Uh, a couple blocks from the store. Why?"

"I'm totally failing to concentrate on this stupid anatomy review. Can I come over? You can tell me to study, I can tell you to grade, and I'll help you get through the shitty pony episodes."

It's a terrible idea for his productivity, but there is obviously no universe where he's saying no to that. "Yeah, sounds good. I'll text you my address."

She shows up half an hour later and settles in on the couch next to him with a pile of books. "Didn't realize you were so close. I should come over more often," she says, and he grins.

Octavia gets back when they're watching _Equestria Girls_ (which, seriously, _what_ ) and he can't even manage to be that embarrassed. Plus, Octavia gets through the mandatory teasing quickly and then settles in to join them for the end of the movie ( _what_ ) and then says, "Do you have time to watch _Rainbow Rocks_ too, Clarke?"

"Yeah, I could watch _Rainbow Rocks_." She elbows Bellamy. "They've got a _band_ in that one."

"Jesus Christ," he says, but he's still smiling. He's been smiling all day. It's fucking _awesome_.

*

Clarke starts showing up when she has free time, just hanging out on his couch like she belongs there. Half the time, she brings her textbooks and the other half she brings her pony cards, and either way, Bellamy has fun. She seems to really trust his opinion on the game, which is a lot more flattering than he expected. She's really _good_. She makes a lot of well-reasoned posts on Reddit and has all sorts of interesting opinions on the future of the game and the meta and shit. He's still not 100% sold on the whole pony phenomenon, but the game is really cool, and when Clarke talks about it, her whole body lights up, and it's one of his favorite things to witness.

"So what are _you_ playing for store champs?" she asks him, once they've finished outlining her deck. He's not convinced he cares about store champs, although the prize support is pretty great, and the winner does qualify for Nationals at Gencon, which would be kind of cool. Clarke and Lincoln already have their tickets. He could live with going on a road-trip to Indiana with Clarke and Lincoln, and ideally Octavia. 

"Dude Tribal," he says, straight-faced. "Going back to my roots."

She laughs. "You're a dick."

"That's why I play dude tribal," he says. "Representing for my dickishness."

Clarke cocks her head at him. "You know, the first week, I was so convinced you were an asshole brony who was just pretending not to like the show because you wanted to impress me. It happens sometimes, guys are like, oh, maybe if I pretend to not like this thing we're clearly both interested in, you'll be into me. It is the stupidest plan."

"Huh," says Bellamy. "No, that was genuine. I had no idea what was happening."

"I know." She grins. "And you _keep denying it_ , even though from what I can tell, we're you're only friends, and none of us care, because we're all also into the game." She pauses. "Okay, Miller might care, but that's just because he's as dumb about it as you are, so whatever. If you're trying to impress me, you'd do a lot better just owning it."

He regards her. "So if I just said, _yeah, the_ My Little Pony _game is awesome, and the show is kind of mixed but cute_ , you'd go out with me?"

"You've also never just asked me out," Clarke points out. "Hard for a girl to go out with you when you never actually make a move."

"Oh." He rubs the back of his neck. "The _My Little Pony_ game is awesome. Want to get dinner?"

"Let's order something," she says, grinning. "Seriously, you need a deck for store champs. If you beat me, it's going to be because you're playing a good deck, not because you fucking lucksack into--"

He kisses her, just because he's pretty sure she won't mind, and she winds her arms around his neck and kisses back.

When they finally break apart, she's still grinning. "You're not playing Dude Tribal, Bellamy, seriously, I will kick your ass."

He laughs and kisses her again, and then she makes him build a real deck, which is admittedly less fun than making out, but still fun. He ends up with something she calls a Tower variant, because it's a deck that still lets him be a giant dick, and he's always down for that.

She stays the night, too, which is definitely the best part. Cartoon horses are fun and all, but he hasn't lost all sense of perspective.

*

It's a ten-hour drive to Gen-Con, so they figure they can do it in one long, somewhat terrible day. Octavia makes a horrific mix of her favorite _My Little Pony_ songs, including some stuff from the old movies, which he vaguely remembers from her childhood, and which will now haunt his nightmares. He doesn't know what sea ponies are, but he hates them. Even Lincoln can't put up with it for more than an hour, and Lincoln is stupidly into his sister.

Clarke, who's in shotgun because Bellamy is driving first shift and she invoked girlfriend rule, switches over to her iPod. The Rolling Stones start blaring, and Bellamy flashes her a grin. "You're actually perfect, you know that?"

She props her feet up on the dashboard and adjusts her sunglasses. "I know. Ready for this?"

"Ready," he agrees.

Six-hundred-fifty miles to go until Nationals. This is his life now.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually did build [Bellamy's Dude Tribal](http://ponyhead.com/deckbuilder?v1code=cg192x1-pr31x3-pr27x3-pr29x3-pr199x3-pr200x3-cn28x3-cg22x3-cn198x3-pr67x3-ad55x3-ad63x3-ad59x3-pr154x3-pr155x3-cn162x3-pr195x2-cg187x2-ad175x2-pr190x2-rr9x2) deck. I did not build any of the others, but I thought about it. I have a problem. Again, there is a reason my tumblr username is ponyregrets.


End file.
